Outrage as NYC girls’ wrestling left out of state competition

New York State is hosting its first-ever high school girls wrestling invitational tournament this month — without student-athletes from NYC’s public schools.

Female wrestlers who compete in the local Public Schools Athletic League are not currently eligible for the state invitational in three weeks. Organizers attribute that to the city girls competing in a different league from the rest of the state’s public schools.

Still, their male peers have long qualified for the New York State Public High School Athletic Association’s boys wrestling championship — sowing anger and confusion among the girls and coaches across the city.

“The entire NYC wrestling community is furious about this,” said Mike Dowd, who coaches boys at Midwood High School.

Asked about the discrepancy, organizers at the state’s high school athletic association told the Daily News that the girls wrestling tournament in question on Jan. 27 in Syracuse is formally an “invitational” — not a championship like the boys event that includes city and nonpublic schools.

“The hope is that this will be a state championship event by next year,” said Chris Watson, a spokesperson for the association. “With girls wrestling just becoming a recognized sport this year, this was the first event we could put together — an invitational in year one.”

But in practice, local coaches said the policy means wrestlers at public schools from all over the state can opt in, while city kids continue to wait for recognition. More than 250 NYC high school students participate in girls wrestling — roughly 20 percent of the total number of girls who compete across the state, coaches said.

“I just don’t think it’s fair that we don’t get the same opportunities as the other teams and the guys,” said Alessandra Elliott, a senior at Tottenville High School on Staten Island, who’s earned All-American honors for wrestling.

More than 30 states officially sanctioned girls wrestling at the high school level before New York started the process, according to the advocacy group Wrestle Like a Girl.

And for students in their last year of high school like Elliott, time is running out for the girls program to catch up with the boys league. Historically, most scouting for all-female teams has happened at the national level — but with more high school associations adding the girls sport, coaches predicted state championships will become bigger recruitment spots.

“There would be an opportunity for college coaches to see me at the state tournament,” Elliott said. “I’m looking at colleges at the moment. Having that opportunity could open the door.”

Her coach at the high school, John Cichon, added: “There are a lot of women’s rules that were passed on (by the association) to deal with next year. But next year doesn’t help the current year’s girls.”

“We have really good women’s wrestlers. If these girls come in, they’re going to win the state,” he said.

Alessandra Elliott, a senior at Tottenville High School, wins the prestigious Fargo Nationals title for wrestlers under 16 years old in 2021.

Adding another layer of frustration to the decision, NYC’s PSAL has hosted an unofficial state championship of its own for several years that any girl in New York state can attend for free, said Dowd. The boys wrestling coach suggested it’s ironic the city’s wrestlers weren’t invited in return.

“We were way ahead of the rest of the country in bringing girls into the sport,” he added. “As I tell my students, I’m old enough to remember viewing girls’ basketball as a somewhat of an oddity, even though I was friends with the players. The idea of girls being wrestlers, not to mention competing against boys, was almost unthinkable.”

PSAL girls wrestling hosted its first official competition in 2013, while the state just started recognizing the sport this year. The state’s public high school athletic association only still grants girls wrestling “emerging sport status” based on the number of schools in each region that offer all-girl wrestling teams.

“It’s not really fair that after basically laying the ground work for girls wrestling in New York state, the girls aren’t allowed to compete at states,” said Eric Klein, the wrestling coach at the Martin Luther King Educational Campus in Midtown Manhattan.

As the tournament quickly approaches at the end of this month, the wrestlers and their coaches are still hopeful organizers may change their mind.

Klein expects that one of his students could qualify for the state invitational, if she was allowed to compete.

“I told her to remain optimistic and hope for the best,” said Klein. “If she doesn’t get the opportunity, you roll with the punches — but it would be disappointing.”

And while the PSAL operates its girls-only league during the spring, many of the city’s top female wrestlers have been competing on mostly male teams in the winter.

“I’m ready,” said Elliott, a current starter on the Tottenville boys team. “I’ve been practicing.”

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